Tails of Marin: What you can do to help dogs in peril in Asia

Asia's dog meat trade is one of the largest animal welfare concerns in the world. Millions of dogs in Thailand — people's pets as well as community dogs — have been stolen in the dark of night, crushed into cages in trucks and smuggled to Vietnam where they are sold in slaughterhouses and meat markets as part of the cruel and illegal dog meat trade.

Many dogs die during the two-day journey without food or water. Those who survive are brutally slaughtered, often after being skinned alive or tortured because of a belief that pain and suffering makes meat tender.

In 2011, Soi Dog Foundation launched a campaign to eradicate Thailand's dog meat trade. Soi Dog's undercover investigators collect information about dog smugglers and inform border patrols and other law enforcement agencies, who intercept the trucks, arrest the traders and rescue the animals from horrific fates. As a result of their efforts, more than 10,000 dogs have been saved from the meat trade. Although the smugglers used to travel across the border along the fastest route in large trucks, in order to avoid being detected they began to use smaller vehicles, try more difficult routes and transport far fewer dogs. In recent months, virtually no trucks have been found bringing dogs from Thailand to Vietnam.

In 2013, the Asia Canine Protection Alliance was formed by Humane Society International, Animals Asia, Soi Dog Foundation and Change for Animals Foundation to eliminate the dog meat trade from the greater region. ACPA has presented two conferences in the last year with high-level government officials from Vietnam, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia to persuade them to effectively enforce the laws against the dog meat trade. This approach complements the raids on dog smugglers: while that produces rapid results, this political approach is having a sustained long-term effect.

The dogs rescued from the meat trade are brought to rescue shelters that are operated by the government and funded by Soi Dog. Thousands of dogs now live there. While Soi Dog provides their food, vaccines and medical care, and ensures the conditions are adequate, the shelters have minimal staffing and hundreds of dogs live in each enclosure. Many of them are former pets who are starved for attention, and some live in fear of the other dogs and lurk in the corners of the shelters. There is an urgent need to find permanent loving homes for as many of these dogs as possible, especially the ones who are desperate to live with people. After surviving the horrors of the meat trade, they face the possibility of spending the rest of their lives in a government shelter.

Every year, Soi Dog Foundation adopts hundreds of dogs to families around the world, especially in the United States. Each adopter works with an adoption coordinator to choose a dog that is a good match for them, and Soi Dog makes all the arrangements. The adopter only needs to pay for the necessary expenses of sending the animal abroad and pick up their new companion at any major airport. This is often less than the cost of buying a purebred dog.